北京师范大学认知神经科学与学习国家重点实验室的刘嘉等于2011年07月15日在Journal of Neuroscience上发表了题为Resting-state neural activity across face-selective cortical regions is behaviorally relevant的文章。
以往的研究表明,大脑在静息状态下的自发神经活动并不是随机的,而是在功能相似的脑区之间存在着较高的相关。这种相关性被认为反映了脑区之间受结构连接所调制的功能关系,是近年来认知神经科学领域研究的热点问题。然而,尽管大量的研究发现这种自发神经活动的相关性广泛地存在于功能相似的脑区之间,我们对这些同步的自发神经活动具有什么功能仍知之甚少。那么是否这些脑区间同步的自发神经活动是行为相关的呢?抑或他们仅仅只是大脑结构连接的附带现象?该研究利用核磁共振脑成像技术,通过直接检验两个面孔加工区域(FFA和OFA)静息状态下自发神经活动的相关的程度,即静息功能连接强度与行为的相关,探讨了这一问题。结果发现OFA和FFA之间静息功能连接强度仅与被试在一些面孔加工任务中的成绩相关,而与非面孔加工任务的成绩无关,且这种OFA/FFA静息功能连接的行为相关性与这两个脑区的面孔选择性和区域大小无关。该结果表明,面孔的加工不仅依赖于面孔加工区域各自的功能性,而且依赖于他们之间自发神经活动的同步性。
该研究为静息状态下脑区自发神经活动相关的功能意义提供了强有力的证据。(生物谷 Bioon.com)
doi:10.1523/?JNEUROSCI.0873-11.2011
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Resting-State Neural Activity across Face-Selective Cortical Regions Is Behaviorally Relevant
Qi Zhu, Jiedong Zhang, Yu L. L. Luo, Danie D. Dilks, and Jia Liu
Interest has increased recently in correlations across brain regions in the resting-state fMRI blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response, but little is known about the functional significance of these correlations. Here we directly test the behavioral relevance of the resting-state correlation between two face-selective regions in human brain, the occipital face area (OFA) and the fusiform face area (FFA). We found that the magnitude of the resting-state correlation, henceforth called functional connectivity (FC), between OFA and FFA correlates with an individual's performance on a number of face-processing tasks, not non-face tasks. Further, we found that the behavioral significance of the OFA/FFA FC is independent of the functional activation and the anatomical size of either the OFA or FFA, suggesting that face processing depends not only on the functionality of individual face-selective regions, but also on the synchronized spontaneous neural activity between them. Together, these findings provide strong evidence that the functional correlations in the BOLD response observed at rest reveal functionally significant properties of cortical processing.